Mid-infrared resonant ablation of PMMA

Laser ablation proved to be a reliable micro-fabrication technique for patterning and structuring of both thin film and bulk polymer materials. In most of the industrial applications ultra-violet (UV) laser sources are employed, however they have limitations such as maintenance costs and practical issues. As an alternative and promising approach, mid-infrared resonant laser ablation (RIA) has been introduced, in which the laser wavelength is tuned to one of the molecular vibrational transi-tions of the polymer to be ablated. Consequently, the technique is selective in respect of processing a diversity of polymers which usually have different infrared absorption bands. In this paper, we present mid-infrared resonant ablation of PolyMethyl MethAcrylate (PMMA), employing nanosec-ond laser pulses tunable between 3 and 4 microns. This RIA nanosecond laser set-up is based on a commercial laser at 1064 nm pumping a singly resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) built around a Periodically-Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) crystal with several Quasi-Phase Matching (QPM) periods. RIA has been successfully demonstrated for structuring bulk PMMA, and selective patterning of PMMA thin films on a glass substrate has been implemented

Robust, frequency-stable and accurate mid-IR laser spectrometer based on frequency comb metrology of quantum cascade lasers up-converted in orientation-patterned GaAs

We demonstrate a robust and simple method for measurement, stabilization and tuning of the frequency of cw mid-infrared (MIR) lasers, in particular of quantum cascade lasers. The proof of principle is performed with a quantum cascade laser at 5.4 \mu m, which is upconverted to 1.2 \mu m by sum-frequency generation in orientation-patterned GaAs with the output of a standard high-power cw 1.5 \mu m fiber laser. Both the 1.2 \mu m and the 1.5 \mu m waves are measured by a standard Er:fiber frequency comb. Frequency measurement at the 100 kHz-level, stabilization to sub-10 kHz level, controlled frequency tuning and long-term stability are demonstrated

Active coherent beam combining and beam steering using a spatial mode multiplexer

Coherent beam combination is one promising way to overcome the power limit of one single laser. In this paper, we use a Multi-Plane Light Converter to combine 12 fibers at 1.03 micron with a phase locking setup. The overall loss measurement gives a combination efficiency in the fundamental Hermite-Gaussian mode as high as 70%. This setup can generate the fundamental and higher-order Hermite-Gaussian modes and has beam steering capabilities

Mid-infrared resonant ablation for selective patterning of thin organic films

The fast growing market of organic electronics, including organic photovoltaics (OPV), stimulates the development of versatile technologies for structuring thin-film materials. Ultraviolet lasers have proven their full potential for patterning single organic layers, but in a multilayer organic device the obtained layer selectivity is limited as all organic layers show high UV absorption. In this paper, we introduce mid-infrared (IR) resonant ablation as an alternative approach, in which a short pulse mid-infrared laser can be wavelength tuned to one of the molecular vibrational transitions of the organic material to be ablated. As a result, the technique is selective in respect of processing a diversity of organics, which usually have different infrared absorption bands. Mid-IR resonant ablation is demonstrated for a variety of organic thin films, employing both nanosecond (15 ns) and picosecond (250 ps) laser pulses tunable between 3 and 4 microns. The nanosecond experimental set-up is based on a commercial laser at 1064 nm pumping a singly resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator (OPO) built around a Periodically-Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) crystal with several Quasi-Phase Matching (QPM) periods, delivering more than 0.3 W of mid-IR power, corresponding to 15 mu J pulses. The picosecond laser set-up is based on Optical Parametric Amplification (OPA) in a similar crystal, allowing for a comparison between both pulse length regimes. The wavelength of the mid-infrared laser can be tuned to one of the molecular vibrational transitions of the organic material to be ablated. For that reason, the IR absorption spectra of the organic materials used in a typical OPV device were characterized in the wavelength region that can be reached by the laser setups. Focus was on OPV substrate materials, transparent conductive materials, hole transport materials, and absorber materials. The process has been successfully demonstrated for selective thin film patterning, and the influence of the various laser parameters is discussed

Tunable Narrowband Tm:YAP Laser using a Transversally Chirped Volume Bragg Grating

International audienceTunable long wave infrared (LWIR) coherent sources emitting between 8 and 12 μm can be used for versatile remote gas sensing. In ref [1] we implemented a parametric oscillator in which wavelength tunability was achieved by temperature tuning of the crystal indices of refraction. It is well known that a similar wavelength range can be addressed by tuning the pump wavelength rather than the crystal temperature [2]. In addition, pump tuning can be significantly faster than temperature tuning. In this context we also need a narrow band spectrum to control the spectral output of the optical parametric oscillator, which is based on Vernier spectral filtering in doubly-resonant cavities. Seger and his team exhibited single longitudinal mode operation in a microlaser tuned with transversally chirped volume Bragg grating (TC-VBG) near 1 μm [3]. We show how this concept can be applied to a different laser emitting at 2 μm

2-μm-Fiber-laser-pumped OP-GaAs OPO and its polarization effects

We report on OP-GaAs OPO directly pumped by 2.09 μm fiber lasers at high repetition rates (40-75 kHz). Up to 2.2 W average output power was achieved at 40 kHz repetition rate in the mid-infrared range.2 page(s

High energy, single-mode, narrow-linewidth fiber laser source using stimulated Brillouin scattering beam cleanup

International audienceWe propose an original nonlinear beam cleaning fiber laser architecture to obtain high energy pulses with a good beam quality and a narrow linewidth. The output beam of a large core Er:Yb co-doped multimode fiber amplifier (M2 ~ 6, 220 μJ) is converted into a near diffraction limited beam (M2 = 1.6) through a stimulated Brillouin scattering injection seeded beam cleanup process. We report in this experiment a multimode to single mode conversion efficiency of 50% while preserving the master oscillator linewidt

Actively Q-switched Tunable Narrowband 2 μm Tm:YAP Laser Using a Transversally Chirped Volume Bragg Grating

International audienceA pulsed, narrow-linewidth, wavelength-tunable Tm:YAP laser was realized. 1kHz stable operation with 200 μJ, 50ns pulses is reported. Spectrum was narrowed to 0.2nm and tuned from 1940 to 1960 nm with a transversally chirped volume Bragg grating

Coherent beam combining of 60 femtosecond fiber amplifiers

International audienc